The Good Hunter
by Istalindir
Summary: Ah, the taste would be...
1. Chapter 1

Blood, thick and sticky and so, so perfect in her throat.

She licks her lips. Can't help herself. Licks again. She wants to drop to the cobblestones. She wants to suck at puddles that gleam crimson, to lick and lick and lick and feel it.

 _Ah_ , the taste would be...

A shudder tore down her spine and she could see herself doing it. The picture was so clear and crisp in her mind. Dark building hunched toward her. They closed in and stretched out and tore at the sky. The drip, drip of blood (beautiful, horrifying, wondrous, delicious, disgusting blood) was present and lovely and almost she could ignore the distant screaming. Almost she felt peace.

She could do it, though. Could scrape her tongue raw against the stone. Hunger twined in her guts, hissed in her mind and flooded her mouth with desire. She could forget, truly forget. Just take and kill and revel in a red ocean of delights unimaginable. It would be so, so easy and feel so, so good.

A sound overwrote the drip, drip that hypnotized and tempted. A moaning, low and guttural and wretched. Her hand tightened reflexively on the slick handle of her hammer, standing head first in front of her, before she realized that the sound was _her_.

The Good Hunter bit down on her tongue (not hard, the last thing she needed was to bleed) cutting off the godawful sound. The night lost some of it's deeper shadows as the haze cleared from her mind. At least, the shadows she didn't like to think about (those that pulsed and glowed and-) were gone and with them her sick desires.

The smell drilled itself into her nose, only now registering on a conscious level. The Good Hunter swallowed heavily, not wishing to add vomit to the desecrated alley she was currently crouched in. She blinked and every flicker of darkness imprinted the piles of gore into her memory. She wasn't sure what they had been.. before. There was so little left whole.

How had.. why had?

Flashes of memory bullied it's way to the forefront of her mind. Swinging her Kirkhammer and swinging it and swinging it and nothing was moving but she'd kept going. She'd just.. kept going.

A sense of obligation, of love, forced her to really look at her poor hammer, the head of which was almost completely coated in.. paste. No decision was made, not really but The Good Hunter found herself scraping gloved hands through the mess. The splat and splash as she flung bits of the coating away made her stomach clench both nauseated and (sick and wrong and it would _be so good_ ) hungry.

It was only when there was nothing more to claw off her hammer did The Good Hunter think of the Dream, of safety, of quiet. Yes, that was what she needed. And she did need it now, suddenly and intensely. She ached for the swirling, twining mist and the great golden moon above and the silence.. the silence most of all. The hunger, the ache, the desire would fade there. She was safe there. She would stay for a time before returning to the hunt. Because...

Because she was a hunter and hunting was what she did.


	2. Chapter 2

The Dream.

Sanctuary, safety, home.

The Good Hunter tilted her head towards the starless heavens, exulted. The slick slide of warmth that seeped into every fiber of clothing as though seeking skin was finally, finally gone.

Undeserved benediction.

The moon, full and golden and glorious, lit the darkness behind her eyelids and chased away, if only for a moment, the memory of crazed eyes and gore soaked streets.

Contentment coiled in her breast, breathing in time with the faint whisper of flowers nodding over forgotten graves. The memory of screaming that echoed always in her mind faded, lulled despite itself.

The Good Hunter opened her eyes and fell in love, as she always did, with the blanket of clouds that lowered the sky and cradled slivers of moonlight.

Here the sky was perfect and close and so very hungry. The city was forever clawing at a sky that gaped above it like an infected wound but here—ah, here all was close and muffled and perfectly, wondrously still.

Colors in the dream were soft, decaying things. So entirely different from the sharp-edged torments of Yharnam where every sight burrowed into her eyes like ticks. The sky would allow little else. It devoured color as it did sound, as it did blood and pain and memories.

The Good Hunter let her hammer, her companion, fall. The heavy head should have split the moldering cobblestones upon which she stood but it fell with only the lightest of thumps to testify it's landing. It would be safe there and she was safe here. Safe and quiet and-

 _-she could still feel the blood on her skin_.

Sliding down her arm to drip from her fingertips. Pooling at her feet and so hot it steamed. The smell was—the smell _was_ …

Gods but she ached with hunger. Her stomach cramped with it. The pain of it stole her breath like something was-like something was trying to _claw_ its way out of her.

She wanted.

She _**wanted**_.

The Good Hunter moved. Lurching and sick and _dripping_. She would not- _so sweet and so bright_ —she would **not** - _sliding down her throat and smothering the burning inside_ -she would _**not give in**_.

The cold iron of the fence sent a shock through her system. It steadied her. There was no blood. There was never any blood here. She was safe. She was safe here. There was no hunger there was no want.

She stared out, past the edge of the land and into the mist that enveloped the world. The mist moved. Curled and twined and made hazy shapes that almost seemed… alive.

Calm. Slow and easy and watch. Just watch. All would be well. There was no need, no want. Only the Dream and only the hunt. She could rest here. The mist would soothe her and the moon would sing to her. All was well.

The Good Hunter's eyes slid closed. But that was fine, that was good. She could still see the mist and the moon was watching. All was sweet and all was calm.

She would return to the hunt soon. She would taste blood again soon. But now-now mist danced behind her eyes. And the moon sang to her.

It sang to her of things slick and bright and _red_.


End file.
